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good as in technically competent, not good as in morally good / emotionally valued (i would have thought that was obvious from the context - not sure if you're

good as in technically competent, not good as in morally good / emotionally valued (i would have thought that was obvious from the context - not sure if you're so dumb you really can't understand, or just desperately trying to find a way to be offended). why would you stay at a crappy job if you're (technically) good enough to move elsewhere? this kind of complaining, about stereotypically bad bosses that treat programmers as commodities is, predominantly, either exaggerated fiction or the problems of commodity programmers. back in the day, commodity programmers didn't read hn - or at least, they didn't comment. it reminds me of the dilbert cartoon where someone is complaining that their boss micro-manages them all day. and dilbert asks if they've tried doing their job so well that the manager doesn't need to. this thread is an archetypical example of the crap that is overwhelming hn these days.

dictum 14y ago
"Good people" is more likely to mean "people who are morally good" than "people who are good at what they do" even in this context. Sorry for misunderstanding your comment. I've seen the association of moral goodness to technical competence before and thought your comment meant that. >Why would you stay at a crappy job if you're (technically) good enough to move elsewhere? People are complicated. They have complex motives, are influenced by irrational thoughts and have a tendency to prefer known evils to unknown evils. I'm not saying this is the right course of action, but this is a good opportunity to start a Ask HN thread (or blog post) about the attitude of commodity programmers. I don't like when people complain about their jobs. I don't agree with the article. But a snarky comment in response to a long article (even if it's factually wrong, or draws the wrong conclusions from the facts) won't make HN better. I don't mean to discount your contribution to HN, but you can spend your time on HN complaining bitterly about the new regulars, or you can try to understand the problem more deeply and help HN in the process. Misguided elitism isn't helpful and only heightens the Dunning–Kruger effect in a community. Sturgeon's Law still stands—90% of everything is crap, and 90% of workers in any field are mediocre at best. Do you really want to spend your next years on HN complaining about the mediocre newbies? The thing that makes HN good is the HN users' ability to write well-thought refutations of any argument presented. HN doesn't have only good arguments and subjects, but people do a good job pointing out flaws and making helpful suggestions to what gets posted here. Instead of tilting at the mill of crappy articles on HN, we should point out what's wrong about them.

dictum 14y ago

"Good people" is more likely to mean "people who are morally good" than "people who are good at what they do" even in this context. Sorry for misunderstanding your comment. I've seen the association of moral goodness to technical competence before and thought your comment meant that. >Why would you stay at a crappy job if you're (technically) good enough to move elsewhere? People are complicated. They have complex motives, are influenced by irrational thoughts and have a tendency to prefer known evils to unknown evils. I'm not saying this is the right course of action, but this is a good opportunity to start a Ask HN thread (or blog post) about the attitude of commodity programmers. I don't like when people complain about their jobs. I don't agree with the article. But a snarky comment in response to a long article (even if it's factually wrong, or draws the wrong conclusions from the facts) won't make HN better. I don't mean to discount your contribution to HN, but you can spend your time on HN complaining bitterly about the new regulars, or you can try to understand the problem more deeply and help HN in the process. Misguided elitism isn't helpful and only heightens the Dunning–Kruger effect in a community. Sturgeon's Law still stands—90% of everything is crap, and 90% of workers in any field are mediocre at best. Do you really want to spend your next years on HN complaining about the mediocre newbies? The thing that makes HN good is the HN users' ability to write well-thought refutations of any argument presented. HN doesn't have only good arguments and subjects, but people do a good job pointing out flaws and making helpful suggestions to what gets posted here. Instead of tilting at the mill of crappy articles on HN, we should point out what's wrong about them.